Saturday

Tuna
"Images

Images (1972) was a total mystery to me after watching it. Thank goodness there was a featurette on the DVD with Writer/Director Robert Altman. I learned that we are seeing life through the eyes of a schizophrenic Susannah York. Nothing we see in the movie can be assumed to be real, but she may be married, writing a children's book about unicorns, and staying in a vacation home with her husband. When she is not using voice-over to recite the book she is writing, she is having encounters with herself, her French lover who dies in an airplane crash, and other men. She sees herself laying on a bed nude, giving us a full frontal. Even had I understood the ending, I probably wouldn't give it away, as many people like this mind-fuck film, and you might decide to see it.

IMDB readers have it at 7.1 of 10, with only 23 voting less than 7. Altman achieved his vision for this film, and many people think it was a great vision, but I am not among them. This is high on the list of films I will never see again. The proper score is C. If you like mind-fuck films, this one does that.

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  • Susannah York (1, 2, 3, 4)

    "Lianna"

    Lianna (1983), according to Lesbian Flicks, is the best Lesbian film nobody has seen. I agree, and hope that the new DVD will change that. It is a John Sayles project. He wrote it, and knocked on doors for years trying to raise the $500K he was going to need to make it. When he finally realized that nobody was going for it, he decided to finance it himself, but shoot on 16mm, so his budget dropped to $300K. He didn't start out to write a lesbian themed film, but the point he wanted to show got him there. He wanted to show a woman splitting from her husband, not getting the kids, and suddenly having a real struggle to earn a living. The only sin he could think of that didn't make her an unfit mother in 1983 was for her to be gay.

    She had married a graduate assistant, and quit work to type his thesis. She is now in an unhappy marriage with two kids, and a husband hoping for tenure, who screws his female students any chance he gets. She is attending night classes, and develops a crush on one of her professors. So history is repeating itself, and she is again choosing an authority figure, but this time the professor is a woman. She decides to move out and come out, and hubby is not graceful about it, partly because he will miss her slave labor, and partly because this sort of scandal pretty much kills his chance at tenure. She hopes to marry the professor and live happily ever after. The professor, however, is currently separated from a long term love interest, and figured she was just another bored, bi-curious housewife she could enjoy then leave. Not that she was callous, and she really did care about her, but she not only had emotions invested in her other relationship, but a lot of her life as well.

    Linda Griffiths, as Liannah shows breasts in several scenes. Jane Hallaren, as the professor, shows breasts and buns briefly. Betsy Julia Robinson, as a woman Lianna picks up in a gay bar, shows breasts. Sayles did an amazing job of getting inside the heads of his characters. He didn't take any easy paths in telling the story. Lianna didn't live happily ever after, neither did she suffer retribution on a Biblical scale for licking pussie. She grew into her new identity, and faced struggles, and some successes, just the way we all do. His insights didn't stop there. Lianna's best friend is now no longer comfortable with the fact that they changed clothes in the same room when they were going swimming. Several of Liann's husband's male colleagues visit her apartment hoping to score with the new divorcee. The two children were also excellent. The six-year-old couldn't comprehend why her mommy and daddy would want to live apart. The thirteen-year-old son had the typical adolescent attitude that this was just another typical move by parents done solely to screw up his life.

    IMDB readers have this at 6.4 of 10. It earned $1.5M in release against the $300K budget. The few minor critics that say it all liked it. The five comments at IMDB are all very positive, and echo my feelings about the film. It is a little grainy because of being shot on 16mm, but the Hoboken locations look great, and it is well filmed and edited. This is one of the better character driven drams I have seen recently, and is at the top of my list of favorite lesbian films along with Desert Hearts, and the first segment of If These Walls Could Talk II. This is an easy C+. The genre doesn't get any better than this, and even the weak transfer wasn't enough to spoil it.

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  • Betsy Julia Robinson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
  • Jane Hallaren (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • Linda Griffiths (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Backbeat (1993)

    Backbeat is not an especially good movie, but I can recommend it to you in many ways:

    1. If you're a big Beatles fan, this is a pretty solid overview of what their lives were like in the pre-fame period on Liverpool and Hamburg, focusing on the friendship between John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe.

    2. You won't get to hear any of the great original hits that made the Beatles what they were, but you'll get to hear plenty of vintage 1950's American rock-n-roll, which is what the Fab Five (Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, Best, Sutcliffe) played in those days, and played well.

    3. The guy who plays John Lennon delivers an intense and excellent performance.

    4. There is plenty of sexy nudity.

    5. The movie is consistently well filmed and acted.

    I say that it isn't all that great a movie because, as Dorothy Parker might have pointed out,  there's no there there. If you forget for a moment that the movie is about the Beatles, and pretend that it's a fictional story about five guys named Schlubb, there's really no reason to watch it, despite those many good points. Some guys form a band, one guy has to choose between the band and his art, chooses art, dies at 21. If you aren't interested in the Beatles, and/or don't like their music or their personalities, there's no compelling reason to watch it. the movie exists, therefore, for the Beatles buffs among us. There are many. I am one, and I found it a pleasant entertainment movie.

    For many celebrities, death was an excellent career choice:

    • For Elvis, dying saved him from being a fat guy singing crappy lounge songs in spangled jumpsuits. That awful image was expunged, and he was able to go back to being the handsome, hard-drivin' rockabilly star that he had once been, and he was able to stay in that stage forever.
    • For Jim Morrison, death served the same purpose as Caligula's self-deification. By dying, Jim raised himself far above the Monkees and the Turtles and the Dave Clark Five and the rest of the Doors, and made himself part of the Holy Trinity of Rock with Jimi, and Janis. Mention one of the Three Jays, and you mention all three. Jimi, Janis, and Jim.

    For Stu Sutcliffe, death was not a good career move at all. If you believe the legend, he was was facing a future of unimaginable promise. He had the choice of being the best-looking member of the most successful rock group in history, or becoming the greatest modern painter since Picasso. Instead of being able to live out either of those dreams, his brain exploded in a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and he died in a tiny studio in Hamburg. He was only 21 years old.

     

    Updates:

    • Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

     

    OTHER CRAP:

     

    Other crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

    Click here to submit a URL for inclusion in Other Crap

     

     

     

    PIRATE COUNTDOWN:

    days left until International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19)

     

     

    MOVIE REVIEWS:

    Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

    • The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
    • If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
    • A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
    • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

    Graphic Response
    • Teri Polo, the co-star of "Meet the Parents" topless in a love scene from the movie "Quick" (1993).

    Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

    Variety
    Jolene Blalock
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    		Bigger and better 'caps of the sexy Vulcan partial nude on Wednesday night's season premiere of "Enterprise".

    Now if I may be a Trek geek for a second...My advice to "Enterprise" producers: keep the skin coming, lose that wimpy theme song and let Captain Archer start kicking some ass, Kirk style!

    Salma Hayek Salam showing off her always amazin cleavage during a recent Letteman appearance.

    Emily Mortimer
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

    		Breasts, bum and full frontal nudity in scenes from "Lovely & Amazing" (2001). Great 'caps by Mr. Nude Celeb.

    Cinzia Roccaforte
    (1, 2, 3)

    		Some serious bush and gyno-cam views in scenes from "P.O. Box Tinto Brass" (1995).

    Bobbi Burns
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

    		Very nice toplessness in an otherwise really lame b-creature-movie. Señor Skin 'caps from the 1982 movie, "Q" aka "Q: The Winged Serpent".

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    CELINE DION IS NOISE POLLUTION
    Tell Me Something I Don't Know - The Sun tabloid reports that Clive and Annive Haviland of Scarborough, England, were hit with a noise pollution complaint by their neighbors for playing too much Celine Dion music. The complaint states that their 13-year-old daughter Annie plays the theme from "Titanic," "My Heart Will Go On," for hours on the electric piano. One neighbor said it's making him sick: "It seems to go on for hours. It is a living hell." Officials warned the Havilands that they could be fined up to $30,000 (US) if they violated the noise abatement order. Annie said the neighbors are "totally exaggerating the situation."

  • It's not like they're actually having to listen to Celine Dion.
  • The neighbors say they know it will go on and on...
  • Annie has to practice for weeks and weeks so that someday, she will be listenable.
  • Did I mention that Clive and Annive are totally deaf?


    SPADE MOVE TUMBLES FAST
    Spade Fade - Last Friday, David Spade shocked movie critics when his "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" debuted at #1. But it may be setting a new record for box office falloff. By Sunday, it had fallen to #2, behind "Jeepers Creepers 2." On Monday, it fell to sixth place. By Tuesday, it was down to seventh place.

  • It's now been renamed "David Spade: Former Star."
  • By Thursday, it was making less money than "Gigli," and all the prints of that were burned two weeks ago.


    CHONG SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON
    This Blows - Thursday, Tommy Chong, 65, of Cheech & Chong was sentenced to nine months in prison and a $20,000 fine for selling bongs over the Internet. The case followed DEA raids of head shops and his business, Chong Glass. Chong was the first person to plead guilty in the raids. He will remain free for a few weeks until they tell him where to report for prison.

  • They'll call his house, and he'll say, "Chong's not here."
  • Nine months in federal prison?! Did those bongs have depleted uranium in them?!
  • Saddam and Osama are still at large, but we managed to bust Tommy Chong for having a bong...Nice work, Homeland Security Czar!
  • I saw a preview of Cheech's new sitcom: they're sending the wrong one to prison.